


I Should Live in Salt

by nomad1328



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-18 07:30:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomad1328/pseuds/nomad1328
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony doesn't need a shrink to tell him that he takes mistakes too seriously, that it’s all because daddy hated him and mommy was too busy to care and somewhere in there the chemistry in his brain got all wonky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s the third time that really brings out the rage. It’s the third time he’s gone through a wall, metal beams and concrete scratching the new paint job all to hell. He wants to be done with these assholes yesterday. Four on one isn’t a fair game and he’s only got two hands. Tony pulls himself free of the debris, facing two opponents, and with a swift pull of two fingers, they go down, clean cauterized holes burnt through their skulls. At least they’re not hard to kill. 

Something - no, someone - smacks into him from behind. It’s brutal, desperate, and rage-loaded; a broad chest pushed hard against Tony’s back, hands grabbing for his eyes. Tony literally shakes the man off and turns, seeing his attacker for the first time. This one is a man with pale skin, two arms, five fingers on each hand, and black holes for eyes. He's a fairly strong man actually, muscles bulging through a thin white hospital gown. An experiment then, some sort of modification or drug beefing up his rage and his muscles, but none of his intellect. The man, panting against the wall for a moment, appears briefly dazed, but shakes his head and charges again. The repulsor blast goes straight through the man's chest and through layers of wall and the fight, this small one, is over.

Tony steps back from the carnage, tells JARVIS to scan the floor for survivors. The floor schematic and fading lifesigns appear in the top right of his screen, but Tony catches his breath and looks around the room, trusting JARVIS to tell him if he finds anything. Someone is going to have to hire a hell of a cleaning crew. There’s not all that much blood, but there is a fair amount of material. There’s a wet smacking sound that hits close to his ear and he flinches, ready to kill again. But as he does so, what appears to be a wet gray sponge falls onto the ground with a splat. Brain matter? “Ugh. Jesus.” Obviously nothing is alive here. “Fifth floor is clear.” 

“Copy that, Iron Man. Fifth floor is clear. We could use some help on two.” Trust Steve to sound like he’s baking cookies when he’s slaughtering genetically altered soldiers. The guy’s not even breathing hard. 

“Copy, on my way.”

The hallway is all flickering fluorescent light. It’s a nightmare. Just like he’s ten years old, and his throat is killing him, and he’s rolling into the operating theater and letting go of his mother’s hand. He’d imagined bloodstains, screaming kids just his age, evil doctors with ten inch syringes. Here, the bloodstains on the walls are real and monsters’ bodies are strewn in doorways, but all the doctors are gone. 

Sweat drips from his chin onto the interior of the face plate as he navigates the stairway. Two hours of fighting and he’s fucking tired. His tongue is swollen with dehydration and the power monitor is in the yellow. He can hear his own harsh breathing echoing against the face plate. There have been more difficult battles, more complicated ones, but this one has gone on for a long time. There’s an odd resistant feeling in his joints when the suit moves.

“J- push some air through. It’s stifling in here.”

He’s halfway down the second staircase when JARVIS cuts in on his comms. “Sir, I am detecting a lifeform fifty yards to the west.”

“Great.” He flips the comms back over to the team. “I’ve got one more up here, guys. Be down in a sec.”

The third level is pitch black. Without the HUD, Tony is pretty sure he’d be lost in two seconds, but the red and orange glow indicating a lifeform is clear on the readout. He moves forward slowly, each step measured. Forty yards away, a fiery ball on the floor, very clearly alive, but making no effort to attack or retreat. 

“Don’t hurt me!”

The ball of yellow and red and green rises into the form of a human, less than five feet tall, less than a hundred pounds.

“Sir, it appears to be a male child. He bears no arms, but his heartrate and body temperature are significantly higher than average.”

“Switch to active infrared.”

Immediately the image of the kid changes to green. Tony can make out the kid’s face now. His hair, too long, is moppish and he’s half dressed in a hospital gown and jeans.

“JARVIS, watch my back, okay?”

“Sir, I am always...”

“Yeah yeah. Just... nevermind.” 

Tony continues moving forward. The kid stands against the wall and his features never change. It’s hard to tell with the nightvision, but the kid seems stoic, like it’s nothing to see a huge metal man with a flashlight in his chest walking towards you in a dark building that's littered with the bodies of dead mutants. 

“How’d you get here?” He waits until he’s ten feet away to ask, his voice probably a little more metallic and scary through the mask, but the the kid still doesn't react. 

“I go to treatment here.” That one burns a little, makes him question his motives here. But Tony isn't naive: even the most evil acts can have beneficiaries. 

“Where are your parents?”

“They’re at work.”

The answer is easy enough. Too easy really. Parents leave their kids to get treatment in illegal facilities all the time, right?

“Well,” Tony surveys the rest of the hallway. It’s vacant save for a single gurney. “Stay here. I’ll come back and get you. Just stay right there.”

“It’s not safe here. I don't want to stay.” The kid starts walking. 

He’s not sure how or why he placates the kid, but Tony follows him through two doors and at each turn he finds himself willing to take the next without even a second thought. The kid obviously knows where he’s going, like he’s walked this way a thousand times in the dark. JARVIS stays quiet, and Tony supposes that’s a go-ahead. Nothing shows up on the floor’s schematic and the fighting on the lower levels is winding down anyway. 

“They keep the others here.” 

They’ve come to the end of a hallway and the kid opens the door for him, looking up at Tony with that blank green stare. Tony steps into the doorway and then it happens. Fire bursts from the walls, blowing out his infrared, turning the room a solid blank white for a moment. The door shuts behind him, some force pushing him further into the room and there’s a so much growling and yelling and bursting, he’s not sure which way to fire. And then Tony is hurled against a wall and lets loose an arsenal until the walls are black. 

When he can hear again, the first words Tony can make out are: “Is he dead?”

He should be. It’s stifling and black in here. Like the depths of hell that he’s sure to enter one day. Maybe sooner rather than later. Probably not today though. The power in the suit is out. Whether that’s because of damage, malfunction, or depletion is a mystery.

“No. But we need a medic down here. Now.”

“How bad is it?”

“His arm’s... it’s.... gone. Most of the bleeding's stopped- looks cauterized. But I can’t wake him up.”

Gone? He can’t tell for now. He only feels like he’s about to suffocate.

“Black Widow to Control, we need medics. Iron Man is down and we have civilian casualties.”

“Stark, can you hear me?” 

There’s a sudden burst of air as the face plate rises. The room is is all fluorescence and white concrete blocks. He takes a huge gulp of cool air and then two more. Barton is leaned over something in the in the middle of the room. Natasha, still holding a handgun in her right hand, has her left hand up to her ear and is looking at the ceiling. And then there’s Steve, squatting next to him, his shield in front of him on the ground.

“Tony?” 

“Yeah. Yeah.” He forces the response past the rushing water in his head. He looks down at himself, at the suit. “I’m okay?” He doesn’t mean it to be a question. 

“Yeah, you’re okay.” He'd feel better about that statement if he could move. Steve puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“I need a tool kit. Help me outta this.”

Tony is only half watching the SHIELD team pour into the room as Steve helps him get enough of the suit off to move freely. There are agents snapping photos of everything and others loading parts of what looks a blue alien into multiple boxes. They're taking measurements, writing notes, looking at their tablets and reaching for protective gloves. 

“What happened up here?” Steve puts a steadying hand on his shoulder as Tony takes a step forward and nearly falls over his own feet.

Tony shakes his head. “No idea. One minute, I was walking through here with...” He pauses. “What happened to the kid?”

All of a sudden, the room goes silent. Steve stares at his feet. Natasha bites the side of her lip. And that’s when he knows.


	2. Chapter 2

“I sent my son there to help him, not so some... trigger happy goon could blow his arm off. My son is crippled for life now and there’s no good reason for it. I’m telling you, this group, and in particular that man, are more dangerous than any of the supposed evildoers in that facility, who, by the way, were making significant progress with my son.”

Tony takes another sip from his glass, feels the smooth buttery liquid slip down his throat and leans back into the leather. He can’t remember the name of this interviewer, though he’s seen the show at least a half dozen times. She never paints him in a good light, yet Tony can’t remember ever sleeping with her. The man she’s interviewing, on the other hand, is a tycoon. Tony has never known him personally, but he knows the name, knows of his exploits into fracking, and his past as a competitor to Howard. Chapman is brilliant in his field, a pioneer, even if he is a pansy frat boy that can’t think for himself. 

“And how is Kevin doing now?”

“He hasn’t regained...” Chapman’s voice falters and he puts a hand to his lip. It’s pathetic, really. Half a moment ago, the man was a ball of anger and now he’s sobbing on national television? Chapman covers his wrinkly face. It’s unsightly, embarrassing, doesn’t do anyone any good, certainly not the kid. He should know better by now. 

Tony recalls his own first public interview. He’d been ten at the time, just weeks away from going to boarding school (though he hadn’t figured that out yet), and a new console that he’d had a part in designing was going into production. The morning of the interview, Tony had woken when it was still dark and ran to the bathroom to vomit last night’s spaghetti. “It’s just nerves,” Howard had said from the doorway as Maria wiped his face with a warm cloth. “He’ll get over it.” 

In the back of the limo, his tie far too tight against his sensitive throat, they crossed Manhattan to the studio, Howard had sipped from a glass and looked straight ahead. “Never give them an excuse to think you’re weak, Tony. They’re hounds. They’ll smell it on you.” 

“Yes, sir,” he’d muttered, sipping a coke and hoping it was enough to keep him from vomiting on live television. It wasn’t. It wouldn’t be the last time Tony was caught vomiting in public, but it was the last time he cried about it. Emoting in front of the camera should be left to the experts.

“Don’t watch that crap. JARVIS, turn it off.” Pepper’s voice breaks into Tony’s train of thought as the screen goes black. “Byers is coming down to talk to you in an hour.” 

“I can’t stand that guy.” Tony shuts his eyes, sinking further into the couch. 

“He’s a good attorney. I thought you liked...”

“I said he's my favorite. Doesn't mean I like him. I don’t need an attorney.” 

He can hear Pepper sighing behind him. “You’re talking to him.” 

“He can talk to SHIELD."

Five minutes of haranguing is all that it takes for Tony to concede but he makes Byers meet him in his workshop. At least then, he can get something done while he goes through this tiresome exercise. And there's no small amount of entertainment value since Byers gets nervous around anything more complicated than a rotary phone. When Tony plugs a soldering pen into the arc reactor in his chest, he jerks a little just to see Byers nearly jump out of his chair with an unrestrained "Jesus Christ..." Tony smirks and it takes Byers two minutes to reorganize his notes. There's nothing he can tell the guy that hasn't been said on the news. Can he turn the video over to the press to support the claim that it was a simple case of friendly fire? No he cannot. Classified. Can he give them anything else, any details of why this particular mission was so important that a child’s life was in danger? Sure, but none of it can be admitted in an official proceeding: classified. Then Byers sighs, taps a pan on the desk, and starts his spiel of legal advice: don’t talk to the press, don’t talk to the parents, and don’t do anything stupid until this thing blows over.

There was a time Tony would have scoffed at the advice and gotten belligerently publicly drunk just to spite it. Especially when it involved his dad giving him the same advice - even after his death, Tony continued to defy everything his father attempted to instill in him about business and public image. At the time he’d taken over as CEO he was young, educated, but inexperienced. The only thing he really wanted to do was make a shit ton of money, bed an entire sorority, and drive the fastest car available. It wasn’t hard to do, being the rich son of a rich legend. 

But now there are the Avengers, his new reputation, Pepper’s reputation. He’s a born again stand up business guy and superhero, and doing something stupid shouldn’t be an option. But then again, his new motto is do the right thing - which isn’t always the smart thing. This isn’t about playing it safe, it’s about the fact that he’s maimed a kid and the least he can do is issue a personal apology. So fuck it. Byers and the rest of the attorneys can deal with the fallout. 

 

Despite opinions to the contrary, it isn’t hard to get an appointment with Gregory Chapman, CEO and owner, Chapman Energy Solutions (CES). Tony makes a call and the guy invites him to his house like they’ve been best buddies for years. He hadn’t expected Chapman to do anything but hang up on him.

The house is older than Tony’s, built in the grandiose style of the 1920’s and updated with a huge garage and stainless steel appliances. Tony is ushered through the front door by what he assumes is the butler or some type of personal assistant. He’s too skinny to be a security guard, though he sees a few of those lurking outside. The skinny guy doesn’t say anything other than “Mr. Stark, Mr. Chapman is waiting for you in his office. Right this way.” And then their steps are echoing on the shiny blonde hardwoods.

Chapman, gray haired, with a heavily lined face, stands as Tony enters the room. The room is all dark mahogany, with bookshelves lining the walls and a selection of scotch on a side table. It smells rich, like leather, shoe polish, and good aftershave. Chapman, staring at Tony up and down, hands him a tumbler and pours two fingers of forty year old Laphroaig.

Before Tony can get the glass to his mouth, Chapman’s fist lands there, the force of the blow pushing Tony up against a bookshelf. The glass falls to the floor.

“That was a good Scotch, Mr. Stark. Shame to have wasted it.”

Tony fingers his bleeding lip, eyeing the gaudy gold ring on Chapman’s right hand. 

“You’re every bit the imbecile your father said you were. I know he taught you about lawyering up, Mr. Stark. This might be a good time to do so.” Tony pushes himself away from the bookshelf, standing up straight.. He feels blood beginning to pool and drip off of his chin and hopes that it stains the rug. “No? That’s too bad.”

Chapman sits behind his desk, sipping from his own glass. “Why did you come here?”

“Those people were using your son. Whatever you sent him there for....they weren’t trying to give him a normal life.”

Chapman smirks. “Normal, Mr. Stark, now there’s a term that you, of all people, should think overrated, isn’t it?”

“You don’t know what those people were trying to do. I saw things, Mr. Chapman...”

“We’ve all seen _things,_ Mr. Stark. My son has a condition. Those people were helping him.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Chapman, those people were probably going to kill him once they were done. We found bodies.” Tony takes a step towards Chapman’s desk and watches the lines on his face deepen. “Your son was...”

“Stop right there, Mr. Stark.”

“Whatever help he was getting there, he was also being programmed to...”

“And you weren’t?” Chapman pushes back from his desk. “Who would you be if your father hadn’t shown you how to do the things you do now? Where would you be without the training you received in school? We’re all _programmed,_ Mr. Stark. That's the way the world works. You’ll be hearing from my attorney.”

Chapman looks down at his desk, no longer paying attention to Tony. The skinny guy is back at the entrance to the office, holding the door open. There’s something else Tony wanted to say here, but he realizes, too late, that whatever he says won’t mean a damn thing to the boy’s father. As it turns out, saying the right thing makes no difference. Tony’s attorney made the right call and Howard probably put it best twenty five years ago: _imbecile._


	3. Chapter 3

A day after Tony’s visit to Chapman, the service notice arrives: Chapman is suing him. The only surprise in that is the speed that Chapman moves. Tony had expected it in the coming months, not five days after the accident. Chapman should be sitting by the kid’s side, but instead he’s been drafting lawsuits. That makes him probably just as good of a father as Howard- taking care of business first, family second. 

“If he hit you, we can counter sue,” Byers says, in yet another meeting, this one held as Tony reclines on the couch and Pepper paces. “And charge him with assault.”

“Yes,” Pepper insists. 

“Not interested,” Tony comments simultaneously. He still wants to do the right thing. Suing the guy who’s kid he just maimed doesn’t seem to be that. It’s cheap shot, a rich boy’s cop out. 

He’s trying to move past that. Past the point where he sues just to prove a point, where he provides money instead of an apology, past where he’s the son of Howard Stark, following every mislaid footstep down the path of wealth and achievement. Isn’t he over that now, working with the Avengers, the greater good, all that? He could’ve made millions - maybe billions - on producing the suit for the military and arc reactors for every joe schmo that wanted one. But he can’t do that. It’s not who he is now. He’s trying hard not to be a jerk.  
Again, Byers tells him to lay low, and this time Tony doesn’t just say he agrees. Instead of poking the bear again, he goes to his workshop. 

 

There’s a few ways to go about this. Plan A is quick and easy, but far less durable, less resilient. The metal binds, a shining golden ridge, tight and solid, but a very hard shock, say, from direct impact with a Stinger, might blow the weld, and thus breach the suit. And that, kids, is no bueno. Plan B is nearly always a more reliable method. It’s Plan B because it’s more complicated, requires more time, more skill, and more tools. The result, however, is far more durable and besides, it gives Tony a good excuse for ignoring the Avengers for the next few hours: the suit won’t be ready. 

DUM-E has already laid out the instruments for him. Tony dons the thick leather welding jacket and mask and picks up the gun. Flipping the switch with gloved hands, he leans down onto the table and depresses the button, watching as glowing splinters of metal fragment off the chest piece. He releases controlled breaths inside the mask, in time with hum of the machine, the flow of energy into metal. He moves slow, emphasizing precision, the combining of the two metals into one clean piece. 

Dr. Akins taught him this. He was fifteen, in his first year at MIT, and had all the sketches and equations and programming, but none of the practical skills. Dr. Akins said he learned it from his own father. “Your father was such an inspiration to me. To us. He was always working so hard during the war. I’m surprised he didn’t teach you how to weld. But I suppose he’s a bit busy for that now.” Dr. Akins had looked away with a brief, sad smile. Tony couldn’t wrap his head around it then and definitely can’t now. By the time Tony was born, Howard’s hands were smooth. He designed, he handed it off, he made the money and stayed away. Howard was a professional CEO; Tony thrives on the physical work. And he doesn’t trust anyone else to mess with his suits. 

Tony turns metal in his hands, eyeing a scorch mark on the right side, then lining it up. When he flipped up the mask a minute ago, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye: Barton. Feigning ignorance, he watches as Clint bends down, randomly pushing at the numbers on the glass and then jostling the door. “I’ve got work to do, Barton. Go away.”

“Stark, open the damn door.”

“Nope.”

“Stark, you can’t wuss out because some asshole is about to sue you.”

“Pretty sure I can. Liability issues and all...” Tony flips down the mask. “Besides, you see this? I’m not tinkering here. This is a real problem. I fly in this thing now and it won’t be a matter of looking pretty, it’ll be a matter of looking dead.”

“What? Let me in the door, Stark. You’re going. You've got five minutes to get your ass into one of those suits.”

“This is the only one that’s been fully operational for weeks now, Barton. And it’s....” He motions to the bits of metal splayed on the table. He shrugs, then depresses the trigger again, sending sparks flying. 

If Fury is sending Clint down to bug him, he must be desperate. Fury had called the team into a virtual briefing hours ago. Tony vaguely remembers ignoring Steve’s calls. Tony hadn’t seen the point of attending a briefing for a mission that he wasn’t going to join. 

Clint pounds on the door. He seems hurried, and the Avengers don't get called to just anything. It's a serious situation and they'll need help. Good thing he's not the only one who knows how to pilot a suit. Tony takes off the welding mask, putting the tools down, and says “JARVIS, get Rhodey on the phone. Tell him to suit up and that Clint will meet him...” He waves towards the door, motioning for Clint to fill in the rest. 

“Inglewood. I’ll brief him over the comms.”

JARVIS complies. Clint runs up the stairs. Tony flips the mask down, picks up the tools again. 

Time is no object here in this place. There’s one goal after another. Weld, set aside for painting, tweak this corner, replace these wires and weld again. His eyes burn with fatigue, his hands ache, yet still he works, perfecting, tweaking, building. 

“Did you hear the news?” 

The voice, Pepper’s, startles him. He’d put down the gun for a moment, examining the last weld, and hadn’t heard her enter. Tony frowns, sighs. News about an Avengers mission usually doesn’t come quite this fast, but he’ll take it. He’s curious anyway. 

“They win?”

Pepper squints, moves closer, her arms crossed at first. It’s a position he’s familiar with, one that says “Tony, I’m not in the mood. Now go do your job.” But then she loosens up, her hands falling to her sides and walking, graceful, up to the workbench. Her long slender fingers ghost over the refurbished sections of the suit, never touching. until she picks up one of the gauntlets, moving the metal fingers, almost caressing the ball of the repulsor and for a moment, there is only that careful movement of her hands and the red of her lipstick. And Jesus, he’s been down here a long time. 

He shakes his head, trying to clear the bleariness. “What?” He isn’t sure why he’s said it. He’s pretty sure Pepper hasn’t spoken again. 

“You’ve been down here for a while.”

“Yeah. That guy sort of did a number on this thing so...” He waves a hand towards the table. 

Pepper puts a hand on his upper arm, squeezing it and then sliding down, carrying the thick glove off his hand and placing it on the table next to the gun. She fingers the closures on the jacket, places a hand over the metal circle of the Arc. If it weren’t for the tension in her neck, for the way that her fingers are twitching, squeezing and relaxing, for the sadness in her eyes, he would’ve thought she was making a move. But this isn’t that. “You need to come sit down for a minute.” 

A shiver runs up his back and he’s suddenly cold all over, despite the leather jacket. Pepper’s eyes are red. Kevin Chapman is dead.


	4. Chapter 4

Humming like a room of supercomputers. Endless. Somehow annoying, yet numbing. White noise that he could drift off to. Electricity and circuits connecting and redirecting and fans to cool, soothe, wash away the heat. Flush it out into the air-conditioned room, out through the vents, out to the sky, to the atmosphere, to space where everything goes eventually. Tony wonders if he’ll still hear this humming when that happens. Because before, when he’d attached himself to a missile and rode it into space, he hadn’t heard anything at all but the boom of a nuke hitting... Hitting something. Whatever it was. It was a boom. There was no hum there. He should have died there. And then maybe that kid would be alive. Nevermind. He takes another sip. The humming doesn’t stop. 

He should be used to this. After five years, he should be accustomed. He is, really, when there’s a distraction. He is who he is. What he is. Which is what? Exactly. Part human, part machine, really. Sort of. This humming thing in his chest. This humming all around. He bangs on his chest a few times, feels metal hitting his sternum, hears the hum jolt and resume. What would it take to get it to stop? Sometimes, he knows the answer. He’s been there and he’s trying his best to get there now. 

“Sir, do you wish me to get Ms. Potts?”

That tone. It reminds him of that day. Fuck space and its silence. That stupid stupid day and every single day afterwards. 

His lips are numb, it’s hard to speak. “What? No.”

“Sir, your blood alcohol content is approximately .22 and will rise further in the next half hour.”

Right. Alcohol. He swings a hand out, he misses, swings again and the glass, cool against his hand again. Ice cubes melting, but still just a bit of something left in there. The cubes fall on the floor, a few drops land on his face, a stream trickles onto his tongue. There must be more around here somewhere.

His feet, he realizes, are still on the floor. His knees work (it’s a miracle) and he stands, wobbles, falls again into an ergonomic computer chair that can hold his weight comfortably for days on end. He might have been here for that long. There’s no telling really. But the important thing is that his glass is empty.

“Sir, I have contacted Ms. Potts. She is on her way.”

WTF?

“Tony? _Tony_!” He must’ve been gone for a while. Pepper is here somewhere.

“Shhhhhh.” He puts a finger to his lips because really, she’s quite a loud one when she wants to be. And he is trying to listen.

“Tony! You need to drink this.” His fingers are forcibly wrapped around a glass, then brought to his lips.

Drinking is good. This tastes like.... nothing at all. He can’t see it. Good though. Refreshing. Reminds him of...

“Tony!”

There’s a swish and a beep and a burst of air as the door to the lab opens again. He hadn’t heard Pepper come in. But he hears the door this time. There’s some real progress.

“Help me get him up.”

There’s a strong hand, not Pepper’s, under his armpit and it tickles a little and “hey!” as he falls backwards and is promptly caught and stood upright again. His stomach churns. 

“Very clever, J. You... you...” The room sways unexpectedly and oh. Damn. There it goes. 

It’s a lot of liquid. And a few uncomfortable chunks of something he’s eaten. It splashes out for ages before his stomach stops convulsing and he regains control, trying, failing to swipe the remnants from his lips. He’s not wearing shoes. This is a workshop. He should be wearing shoes. Dad always made him wear shoes on the factory floor. And goggles. Safety was important. Safety first. Safe inventions, safe investment, safe safe safe because if you aren’t safe, you’re dangerous, a liability, an embarrassment. Well fuck you too, dad. Fuck you and your safety and your goddamn... 

“Christ.” 

His feet are all turned in, awkward and slippery, and by god, he’s being moved so fucking fast that he can’t put them down properly. The walls are humming, his stomach coiling again, and he has to wait, hold it back. He’s dropped to his knees in front of the toilet and it’s there that he can no longer hear it. Instead, there is only the burning rush of liquid traveling up through his esophagus and the spattering of liquid into liquid. And then he finally gets to that place where everything goes away for a little while. 

 

It’s worse when he wakes, his head a swirling mass, his bowels nearly catastrophic. Tony throws the sheet off, vaguely recognizing that he’s down to his boxers, and half stumbles to the nearest bathroom, which isn’t his personal private one. A guest bedroom, maybe on the first floor. Instead of the blue tones of his bathroom, this one is apple red (horrendous) and his last name is printed in gold on the towels. Who the fuck designed this place? As soon as he’s finished purging everything in his stomach and intestines, he vows to schedule a remodel.

“Are you okay?” Pepper is leaning against the wall when he emerges. If there is one thing that’s changed since she went from assistant to girlfriend, it’s the way Pepper responds to his drinking. Before, she dismissed his hangovers and made his drinks. Now she berates him, and takes his drinks away. She's poured good scotch down the sink on more than one occasion. She’s asking if he’s okay now, but she’s really saying _Tony, you’re an idiot. You’re going to kill yourself if you keep this up. I’m leaving if you don’t stop._

He looks at her, his eyes burning, his head pounding from the light in the room. “Dim the lights, J.” His throat is raw, but the rooms are still spinning and he needs sleep. 

He knows she’s following him back to the bed because when he gets there, sitting on the edge of the mattress, she pushes a glass into his hand and sits next to him. “Drink this. It’ll make you feel better.”

“Hair of the dog?” he asks, eyeing the glass of ice and pale brown liquid. There’s condensation all over it, the cubes half melted, like she’s been waiting with it for a while. 

“Hardly.” 

He sniffs it when she holds it out to him. Ah. Ginger. There’s red flakes in it though. And a lemon floating on top. He shrugs and takes the glass, drinking it down all at once. It’s horrible, but almost immediately, his stomach calms, the nausea retreating from the spicy ginger. 

“Better?” 

“Yeah. Thanks,” he murmurs as he eases himself down onto the pillow and pulls his legs up, allowing the comfort enveloping his stomach to drag him quickly into half sleep. He shuts his eyes. 

“This isn’t your fault, Tony.” She’s wrong there. But he doesn’t have the heart to deny her. “He had an infection; they say it could’ve been that facility he was in that exacerbated... everything... so...” 

Tony turns his face into the pillow. “I’m tired, Pepper.” 

He feels the weight of her sigh, a hand on his shoulder. “Chapman doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on. The raid was authorized, the clinic wasn’t. This will blow over, Tony. We just have to be patient.”

Tony doesn’t want to argue with her. It isn’t about the lawsuit.

“Maybe you should take a break for a little while. Maybe you could see...” He cuts her off with a groan because he knows where she’s going with this. She’s done it before. Tony doesn’t need a shrink to tell him that he takes mistakes too seriously, that it’s all because daddy hated him and mommy was too busy to care and somewhere in there the chemistry in his brain got all wonky and there’s plenty of drugs to soothe that over, but they soothe over other things, too. Things that he doesn’t want soothing. 

“Just... promise me you’ll think about it. The time off,” she clarifies. “Maybe we can take that exotic beach trip that you’ve been promising me.” 

“Yeah. Fine. Whatever you want.”


	5. Chapter 5

When he wakes again, he’s still probably over the legal limit. Pepper is gone and his phone is lit up with messages. He sprawls on the bed, shifting through the call log and stutters at the number for Steve Rogers. Great. 

The message is succinct. “When you wake up, we need to talk.” 

He figures he’ll call them tomorrow. He’s slept all day, into the evening, and talks can wait. Tony ambles into what he assumes is his own kitchen, in search of something to soothe the acid churning in his stomach. He’s looking for fried eggs, some greasy home fries, maybe some gravy to top it all. Anything to quell the destruction whiskey has left on his innards. Instead he gets Steve and Natasha, sitting with their arms crossed and cutting their conversation as soon as Tony steps into the room. 

“Oh great...” he mutters, wishing he had the energy to run in the opposite direction. He makes a note to berate JARVIS about this later. 

Natasha gets to her feet, vacating the chair into which she half pushes Tony. He isn’t in the mood to fight her. There’s a stack of photos on the table, and suddenly he wonders if she just got back from vacation and wants to show her scrapbook or if she’s about to blackmail him. He hasn’t done anything too horrible for years. She moves to face him,, but remains standing. Steve maintains his seat, but he’s a little easier to read. There’s a lot of disappointment there, a lot of anger and “we thought you were so much better than this,” but there’s also something that Tony might be mistaking for sympathy. 

“Can I at least get some coffee first?” 

Natasha speaks first. “These were taken two days ago..”

Tony keeps his hands in his lap and leans closer to the table, struggling to focus on the first photo. Looks like some city in America, all black asphalt with faded yellow lines and billboards. Tony guesses that it’s LA, but there’s no distinct point of reference. He looks again to his teammates, still searching for anything that gives him a heads up over what this might mean.. Steve, impatient, uncrosses his arms and moves, pulling the first photo away and revealing the second: the Chapman kid, two pale arms emerging from a short sleeve shirt. It takes his breath away a little, but Tony despises the relief that washes over him.

“He’s alive?” 

Natasha sighs. “There was definitely a body that was cremated. We’re not sure yet, but this may be a clone. That kid wasn’t an innocent bystander, Stark.”

Tony flips through to the next photo. Then the next. Kevin Chapman, walking on a sidewalk, getting into a car, picking french fries out of a McDonald’s bag. “You waited two days to show me this,” he mutters, still looking down. He looks up at Steve and Natasha. Both of them seem on guard, unsure. “You know that whole waiting for photos to develop thing is sort of obsolete now. I sort of have to ask why I didn’t get these before now.”

His question goes unanswered. Instead, Steve says: “Tony, you didn’t do anything wrong. So you need to stop the guilt trip.”

“Someone died, you said it yourself. I got into a situation, I thought I had it under control. I didn’t. That’s what happened.”

Natasha and Steve eye each other once and then she backs towards the door. Tony hates the silence that’s left. He can hear Steve breathing as he moves around the room, coming closer and closer. 

“If this is some sort of...”

“Tony, I first saw your dad back during the war. I saw his presentations. I saw him at work.” 

Steve is a foot away from him, sitting on the desk like some sort of concerned school teacher. Tony grimaces, standing to move away. “Old news, Cap. All he could talk about was you, so I figured... you know...”

Steve shoves Tony back down into the chair. It’s not gentle and Tony’s hangover steps up a notch. His head pounds.

“You’re going to listen to me.”

“Just because you push me down doesn’t mean I’m going to listen.” Steve actually rolls his eyes. It’s impressive. Maybe he’s finally getting the gist of the 21st century. 

“I saw your dad’s presentations _before I knew him_. I heard the rumors. Back then, things were kept hushed up pretty good. Not like now.”

“Why is this about my father anyway? I thought we were talking about my guilt trip.”

Steve pauses, backs away from the desk. He seems embarrassed. “You were talking last night. A lot.”

Ah. That figures. If there’s one thing that never stops working while Tony’s drunk, it’s his fucking tongue. If Steve was there to hear it - that’s surprising. It had been well after midnight by the time he was getting a buzz. What the hell was Steve doing in his house at that time of night? Tony immediately regrets giving any of his teammates access. He certainly doesn’t need roommates or nannies. 

“Stark, your dad was the craziest son of a bitch I ever met. He wasn’t perfect. He was reckless, arrogant. Nothing he did was safe. And maybe that got him somewhere he didn’t want to be. I don’t know. These things happen.”

“You’re right,” Tony says. The anger slips out past the headache and the roiling stomach. “You weren’t there. You didn’t know him when I knew him. What? Are you going to tell me that he secretly didn't hate me? That he secretly was trying to teach me to be a better man than him? Well, he was a fucking failure at that at least.”

“I can’t claim to know that.”

“No.” He eyes the photos of the kid again, whole, alive, not a gangrenous corpse, yet transmuted into something altogether different underneath. “If there was anything my dad did actually teach me, it was that you do the math before anything else. I should’ve done the research. I should’ve done more recon. I should’ve told the kid to stay there. I shouldn’t have allowed it to happen.” Steve is a sidenote now. There’s only guilt and these photos. He pushes them away and they flutter to the floor. “I was wrong.” 

There’s that silence again. The back of his shirt is moist, sticking to his skin in damp patches. He’s sure he’s starting to smell like a bar, the alcohol leaching out of his skin.. His watch displays his elevated heart rate and blood pressure. He swipes at it, pushing the button for the next screen. BAC: .08. Fuck. 9:30pm. 

“Maybe it was the wrong decision.” Steve’s words, this time, are unapologetic and Tony can at least respect him for that. “But doing this job means that you take that risk. We can’t always be right. We live with it. We learn from it.” Steve stands, crossing his arms again. “This is over now. You’re moving on... or you’re off the team.”

A sudden, unexpected surge of self pity rises in Tony’s chest and he tries think of something better to say but all that comes out is:. “Could be for the best.” It’s a weak quip. It’s not quite a lie. He doesn’t think that he wants out. Steve doesn’t react. Tony makes a sudden beeline for the coffee maker with the hope that giving his hands something to do will make this easier. Or make Steve go away. 

“You have a month, Stark. Set yourself right.” 

Tony drops spoonfuls of coffee grounds into the filter, probably too much. The coffee will be tar. It’s what he needs. He sees Steve out of the corner of his eye, heading for the door. “That’s it then?”

“That’s it.” And then he’s gone. Years ago, Tony would slam a hand onto the counter, throw a mug through the glass cabinets, make a bloody mary and take something for the headache, then invite everyone to his house. Today, he sinks back into the chair and watches, blank, as black coffee drips into the glass pot. He wants to fall through the floor, through layers of concrete and dirt and rock and straight into hell. But it turns out that he doesn’t have the energy for it. 

He hears Pepper’s sigh when she comes to the doorway. She pours coffee into a mug, sets it down in front of him. He doesn’t reach for it. Her hands, slender, manicured, rest flat on the table and the room is so quiet that they can hear each other’s breathing and Tony is trying to keep the hitch out of his. It’s easier to look at the dull black surface of the table and to listen for the hum of the machinery in the house that he wishes, at this moment, was just a bit louder.


	6. Chapter 6

Silhouette Island is extravagant and beautiful, but Tony bores easily. The sand never changes, with the exception of passing afternoon storms, the sun always shines, and it’s always hot, muggy. Pepper makes all of the arrangements. She hires private yachts for evening cruises, arranges a guide for diving, hires a boat for fishing. There are restaurant reservations, personal cooks. Tony drinks a bloody mary in the morning, champagne for lunch, and sips through tumblers of scotch until he has a beer with dinner, never rip roaring drunk, but never sober. Slipping bottles of water into his day bag, Pepper doesn’t chastise him unless he tries to back out of whatever she has planned. She’s the one that wanted to come here, but he’s the one that conceded and he doesn’t have the energy to fight her. It’s not like she’s asking him to do the laundry or take out the trash. Vacation should be relaxing or fun or something. But everything is rote really and he’s tired all the time. The smiles he manages for Pepper's camera is plastic, conjured by years of practicing in the limelight.

The media shitstorm that had happened over Kevin Chapman’s supposed death isn’t even a blip on the radar here. Even if Tony was reading the news, it’s filled with the opinions on the Kenyan election, pirates on the coast of Somalia, and the latest efforts to enforce fishing regulations. They don’t seem to need superheroes here and they don’t care if said superheroes are complete fuckups. At least he doesn’t have to deal with that. 

Neither does he have to deal with the lawyers. The elder Chapman disappeared off the radar, along with his kid and the lawsuit. Hell, they’re probably on a neighboring island, soaking up rays and letting lizard boy or clone or otherwise mutated kid lay on rocks. Tony doesn’t care. They’re out of the picture. They should be. 

All that aside, he still lays awake at night, smelling salt and sunscreen, listening to the pool’s waterfall as he counts down the hours of sleep he’s missing. When he drifts off, there’s only one dream: someone asks him for help and Tony puts up a hand and fires a repulsor blast right at them. Sometimes the blast goes through their chest, other times it takes off their head. Occasionally, it removes a limb, but he always follows that one with a second blast. When he shudders awake, Pepper tries to hold him in the bed, but he leaves, spending hours sitting on the beach before dawn. 

He isn’t on the beach to watch the sunrise, and he shuts his eyes as the orange light begins to creep up over the horizon, followed by a steep warming that makes him think that maybe it’s a good idea to go inside. But he hasn’t managed more than a few hours of sleep every night for a long time and his mind is already in that halfway haze of sleep where one thought slides into another and another. So he drifts with the roll of the ocean. 

“Tony. TONY.”

The sound of his own name makes him flinch and he startles awake, surprised at the feeling of being a little rested. His face feels like jerky though, sandblasted and hot. Without opening his eyes, because _goddamn_ it’s bright out, he reaches down for a bottle of water he’d thrown into the sand and comes up empty. 

“Here.” The voice isn’t Pepper’s. A glass is pushed into his hands and he looks up through squinted eyes and spots an outline. Clearly not Pepper then. He takes the glass, the cool condensation almost making it slip out of his hand. The waves keep rolling in. They’re much closer than they were when he’d drifted off, the largest ones lapping over the tips of his bare toes. “It doesn’t matter where you go, Tony. It’ll always be there.” Bruce Banner would know. He’s killed a lot of people, out of control, a monster of his own making. “Pepper’s going to kill you by the way. You’re about to spend the rest of your vacation smothered in aloe. You’ll be sick later.” Bruce is moving around him and suddenly Tony is in the shade, a beach umbrella propped in the sand behind him. 

He stretches his arms out in front of him, notes the already tightening skin on his forearms. His legs haven’t fared any better. At least he hadn’t gone out naked. It’s force of habit that makes him speak. It’s one thing he’s good at it, spouting words upon words, quickly, effortlessly, before he has a chance to think. “Pepper sent you? God, she’s a nag.”

Bruce frowns, sits in the sand on Tony’s right, swirling his own glass. “You’re lucky.”

“She sent the jet for you? I thought you were in Bolivia.” 

“Small country. I was bored.” 

“Jets aren’t free, you know.” It’s not the cost that bugs him. “And I don’t need an intervention. I’m fine. How could I not be? Sun, sand, surf... all that stuff. And sun.” Tony frowns for a moment, sipping the coconut water that Bruce had handed him. “This is horrible. There’s a huge bottle of rum up at the house. You couldn’t have...”

“Electrolytes. Drink up.” They sit, silent for moments, watching a dinghy moving across the horizon. A mid-morning fisherman, hauling in nets. He should ask Bruce about Bolivian festivals, quiz him on the finer points of his biotech research, but he’s washed out and vacant and it scares him how much he’s not interested in anything at all. 

“I can’t tell you that it gets easier, Tony. You have a choice on whether or not to suit up.” That much is true. He has a suit, not a condition. “You can quit..” Bruce continues. “You could have a role - do tons of research and development for us, keep working, but... on an administrative level. No one would really fault you for that.”

“Don’t give me that crap. It’s such a cop out.”

“Yep.” Bruce picks up a hand full of sand, lets it filter through this fingers.

“Is that really your answer? Yep? I’m sort of getting some mixed signals here. You’re all ‘you don’t have to do this, but if you don’t you’re a pansy?’ Is that it? It’s like reverse psychology but not really?”

“I’m just being honest.”

“You know what? Your honesty really sucks.”

Tony watches the edges of Bruce’s lips turn upwards.. “Yeah, well, I spend so much time lying through my teeth.” He pauses, breathes out. “You told me you were privileged and we had a talk about control.”

“Yep.”

“I’ve worked hard. And maybe you have too. But I realize now, that maybe you don’t have as much control as I thought. Maybe there’s still more work to be done.”

Tony rolls that one around in his head for a moment, takes another sip of the horrible liquid in the cup. “Are you offering?”

“I think I am.”

When Bruce pulls him up out of the chair, Tony winces as the skin on his arms and legs pulls, painful and dry. When they get back to the house, Pepper will smother him with aloe gel and berate him a little for being such an idiot. Bruce will take trips to the local markets and make meals that Tony will rave about for years. But for now, Tony focuses on the path ahead of him, treading carefully through the ankle deep sand back to the house with Bruce at his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the reviews and kudos!

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to my awesome beta, [ ArmchairElvis](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ArmchairElvis) See, I did publish (finally). Again, proof that I can never write a novel. Really? 8000 words takes 6 months? 
> 
> Title is from a song from The National's album, Trouble Will Find Me (which was all AE's idea and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find anything else that fit better).


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